Cheese–Action Shots!

My cousin Sean has been here to visit for the past few days and really wanted to make cheese. This gave me a chance to get a few action shots for you. I’m not going to get into the process in detail–that’s what the cheesemaking kit is for!–but this is what it looks like.

Incidentally, the Kitchn had a post that went up this weekend about a problem making their mozzarella with what sounds like the same method. It looks like they may have used the wrong milk–if the milk is ultrapasteurized, it won’t work. Our cheese, on the other hand, came out fantastic. Maybe because I was a little stuffy the first time we made our cheese and I couldn’t really taste it so well; maybe I overkneaded it, or maybe because the proportion of the rennet tablet used was a bit smaller; for whatever reason, I found this batch to be much more cheesy-tasting. It was divine. Yum.

You start by heating the milk, which is mixed with citric acid. You have to stir constantly. Afterward you add rennet, stirring, and set it aside. You get a big ol layer of curd, which you cut and reheat.

Here are the curds, being stirred and reheated. The liquid you see is the whey. After you do this a while, you drain off the whey and melt your curds, which you then shape into cheese by stretching it, like this: